Down Home Carolina Christmas. Pamela Browning

      Down Home Carolina Christmas

      Pamela Browning

      For Lynne and David and Sheila and Tony, whose

       friendship I value and who have made life since Hurricane Jeanne a whole lot more fun than it would have been without them.

      Contents

      Chapter One

      Chapter Two

      Chapter Three

      Chapter Four

      Chapter Five

      Chapter Six

      Chapter Seven

      Chapter Eight

      Chapter Nine

      Chapter Ten

      Chapter Eleven

      Chapter Twelve

      Chapter Thirteen

      Chapter One

      It would be right at the time that Odella Hatcher stopped by to complain about her windshield-wiper blade that a handsome movie star showed up at Carrie Smith’s garage driving a red Ferrari.

      As the car approached through the shimmer of late-August heat, Carrie glanced up, then did a quick double take. She’d never seen a Ferrari in Yewville, South Carolina, population 5,000.

      “I mean, the right wiper scrapes on the windshield,” Mrs. Hatcher said, oblivious to the slinky red car idling nearby. “It didn’t used to do that.”

      Carrie kept an eye on the Ferrari as she lifted the wiper blade of Mrs. Hatcher’s Lincoln and flicked experimentally at the loose rubber with a forefinger. She couldn’t discern any scratches on the glass, but Mrs. Hatcher was not about to give up.

      “Listen to me, Carolina Rose Smith. I didn’t believe that wiper blade required changing last week when you cleaned my windshield,” she said with righteous indignation. “I wouldn’t have okayed it if you hadn’t said it was necessary. Look at those scratches. Here. And here.”

      Carrie still didn’t see any scratches. What she could see, however, was Mr. Luke Mason of Hollywood, California, sliding out of his car, big as life. At one time she might have been surprised to spot a movie star in Yewville. But now that those Hollywood people had been swarming all over the place for weeks, getting ready to film a movie about the life of Yewville’s own local stock-car legend, Yancey Goforth, it would take much more than a movie star to faze her.

      Covertly keeping tabs on the man out of the corner of her eye, Carrie proceeded to clean Mrs. Hatcher’s windshield. As she pushed the rubber part of the wiper back into its groove, Carrie said, “There now, Mrs. Hatcher. Let me run some water over the window and you can try it.”

      Now Luke Mason was whistling through his teeth and bending to inspect the Ferrari’s right front tire. Carrie, pointedly ignoring him, turned on the hose and flooded the Lincoln’s windshield, waiting patiently while the blades wiped it clean.

      “It’s not scraping anymore, is it?” Carrie asked solicitously.

      “Maybe not,” Mrs. Hatcher conceded. She still seemed annoyed, but that was not unusual. Her husband, Vernon Hatcher, of the spotless white suits and big smelly cigars, was the county school superintendent and bestowed upon his wife a certain amount of clout, with which she delighted in clobbering people.

      “You just let me know if it gives you any more trouble, hear?” Carrie said. But her mind wasn’t on Odella Hatcher. She was more interested in the famous trademark scar on Luke Mason’s left cheek, indented so it resembled a dimple. And the streaky brown hair falling carelessly over his forehead. And the piercing blue eyes that shimmered in their depths like Pine Hollow Lake on a sultry summer day.

      At the same time, Luke Mason was treating Carrie to a long sweeping glance that took in her high heels and the swirly skirt of the dress she’d donned for worshipping purposes before church this morning. But right now she had to deal with her cranky customer, never mind that Carrie wasn’t even on duty today. Smitty’s Garage was closed on Sundays, always had been ever since her grandfather, the original Smitty, opened the doors back in 1953.

      Luke Mason sauntered into the garage through the open door. Rats, Carrie thought in exasperation. I’ve got chicken to fry at home, Memaw Frances and Dixie Lee and Voncille and Skeeter’s family coming for dinner, and I don’t want some movie star wandering around in there.

      Mrs. Hatcher had grown even more querulous. “Aren’t you going to wipe the windshield off, Carrie? With the squeegee and all? And polish it again?”

      “Sure,” Carrie said, gritting her teeth. She sudsed the windshield, while Mrs. Hatcher picked the remaining chips of pink polish off her acrylic thumbnail. For his part, Luke Mason leaned against the door to her office, folded his arms over his chest and whistled softly to himself.

      Let him whistle, Carrie thought with annoyance. She deliberately bent over so he’d get a better view of what he seemed so interested in, though a movie star who had been named World’s Sexiest Man by People should have had his fill of ogling and a whole lot of other things back in Hollywood, California.

      “Thanks, Carrie,” Mrs. Hatcher called out. She squinted through her bifocals at the man standing in the doorway of the station. “Say, isn’t that Luke Mason? The movie star? Who is going to film that movie Dangerous right here in Yewville?”

      “I’m afraid so,” Carrie said with considerable irony.

      “Oh, my goodness, it is him. My daughter would dearly love his autograph.” Mrs. Hatcher tumbled out of her car, her tight yellow curls quivering with excitement. “Mr. Mason? Mr. Mason!” To his credit, Luke Mason didn’t recoil when Mrs. Hatcher demanded that he sign her church program, and he even handed it back to her with a flourish and a smile.

      “‘To Tammy, I’m sure you’re as charming and beautiful as your mother.’ Oh, Mr. Mason, you’re every bit as nice as the National Enquirer said you were.”

      “Nicer,” Luke Mason muttered, a flare of amusement in his eyes. But Carrie wasn’t sure Mrs. Hatcher had heard him. Carrie herself had never considered that movie stars might have a sense of humor, not to mention irony.

      Happier than Carrie had ever seen her, Mrs. Hatcher fluttered her hand out the open window as her Lincoln lurched onto Palmetto Street.

      Carrie dried her hands on a paper towel from the dispenser on the pillar and marched into the garage, where, by now, Luke Mason was standing in front of her desk, eyeing that old calendar with the picture of Marilyn Monroe. Carrie’s grandfather had hung it on the wall in 1955, and for sentimental reasons she’d never removed it.

      “Sir, we’re not open on Sundays,” Carrie said politely, determined to treat Luke Mason just like anybody else. She wasn’t about to go gaga over any of these movie folks who were intruding all over the place, occupying counter stools at the Eat Right Café, setting up scaffolding so nobody could walk on the sidewalks and throwing outrageous sums of money around.

      He favored her with a friendly smile. “Oh, I thought—” Luke Mason aimed a confused glance at Mrs. Hatcher’s car as it rounded the corner at Palmetto and Main. “The air in my tires should be checked,” he said, sounding resigned and apologetic. “Is there another gas station open in town?”

      “Not that I know of,” Carrie said briskly as she retrieved the recipe for cheese potatoes from the copy machine, where she’d left it yesterday. It was the whole reason for her stopping by after church.

      “I usually carry a tire gauge with me, but it’s gone missing,” he said apologetically.

      “I’ve got one right here,” she said, scooping it off the desk and handing it over smartly.

      When